Page 9 of Queens Ride Horny Dragons
I glanced at the lacy curls of dragon fire smoke drifting up toward the high ceiling. “You need to dress your wounds, so no more sneaking around for you. So how about this? I’ll stay here to steal the security footage from last night. You take the car back home."
Well, what was now called home; it sure as hell didn't feel like it.
Calhoun shook his head. “I don’t want you wandering around a building where a murder took place, not to mention Petra and Rio could still be here.”
“I won’t be wandering if you tell me where to go,” I argued. “I’ll be in and out in no time with all of the answers of what happened last night.”
His eyes fell shut as he seemed to consider, his hand still gripping his throat. "I'll have another car waiting for you right out front. Are you sure you’re okay with this?"
It was sweet of him to ask since he was the one bleeding out after I’d attempted to kill him. "Yes. I'll get the security footage, and you stay alive. I like that plan very much."
He hugged me tightly with his free arm and pressed his lips to my hair. "You're a terrifying beauty, my queen."
Oh, I thought he was going to say terrified, because that was more like it. And not just of this place either.
“If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to be armed with something more than a knife.” He nodded toward the secret door. “Come on. I bet we can find something in Oliver’s office. I guess we should’ve come here with more weapons, but I honestly didn’t suspect any of this would happen.”
“And the dragon fire? Who’s doing that, do you suppose?”
He sighed. “No idea, which makes me feel even worse about you staying here by yourself.”
“My mind’s already made up,” I said with a shrug. As a thief, I’d thrown myself into stupid decisions before, like breaking into a serial rapist’s housewhilehe was home to get one of the objects I needed to find Asa. I’d done it and walked out, no problem. Now, I needed answers, and I refused to leave here without more of them.
With our arms wrapped around each other, we headed back the way we came toward the secret door in Oliver's office and past the hallway with his...body.
Who would do that? And why? It was the grizzliest thing I'd ever seen, and far removed from anything I could ever imagine. I held my breath as we drew closer, not just because of the stink but because of the scream still clawing up over my tongue.
Once we made it to the office, Calhoun closed the secret door and crossed toward Oliver’s desk against the wall. "There are several floors with security, but the closest one is the fifth floor. I'll have a car waiting for you at the curb under the name Delilah." At my questioning look, he shrugged. "My mom's middle name. She hated it, so only we knew about it."
I smiled, a sad, grim one.
After empty the tissue box on Oliver’s desk to hold them to his neck, Calhoun rummaged through the desk drawers and finally came up a pistol, something I’d never even held before. "As soon as I can, I'll send word for Tavis and Vance to head here pronto and to look for the car I put you in while on their way. If they don’t see you in that car…" He shook his head as he strode toward me with the pistol. "I don't like this even a little bit, Yara."
"I don't like this either." In fact, it might have been the stupidest decision I'd ever made to stay here alone, but I was here, and I desperately wanted to know who murdered Oliver. Before they struck again. Because like it or not, the stovetops' lives and deaths did affect me now. "Now go."
He handed me the pistol, gave me some quick tips on how to use it, then dragged himself across the room with blood leaking out from the soaked tissues at his neck.
Pretty sure I’d cut him worse than he was letting on. Guilt swamped my gut and burned the backs of my eyes.
Before he got to the door, he turned. "Promise me you’ll be careful. If anything happens to you…"
The concern coating his voice and etched onto his face made me feel so much worse.Other than Asa, it was a foreign feeling having someone care about me so much.
"I promise,” I said over the rising lump in my throat.
With a nod, he was gone, leaving me alone in a world I didn't think I was cut out to be in. But I didn’t blame him for that.
Doubt licked fiery flames at the bottoms of my feet and shooed me after him, but I resisted. I doubled back through the secret door at high speed, both the pistol and my Titanosaur gripped tightly in my fists, my gaze aimed straight ahead.
Someone should probably take Oliver’s body out of here. Someone…not me.
The cool air down in the dungeon cleared my head some while I kept to the shadows in the middle, away from the flickering wall sconces. All of the cells on both sides were closed, and I had no idea if they were occupied or not since only shadows swarmed within. The only sounds were my footsteps on the stone floor and my heart slowly punching its way out of my ribs.
I slowed before I rounded the corner to my left and crossed over to hug the rough wall with my back. After stowing my knife and pistol the best I could—the pistol was much too bulky, but I didn’t have much of a choice—I freed the small, circular mirror from my thigh tape. Then I tilted it to show a bank of elevators around the corner, and that was all.
I headed straight for them. Once on the fifth floor, I walked out like I totally belonged here, which I supposed I did, in a way. Still, no one needed to know I was here. I ducked to the right toward a water fountain for something to do while I took in my new surroundings. This floor was just as empty as the rest of the building, it seemed, with long stretches of hallway on either side of me. Behind my back sat a glassed-in office space with loads of computer monitors flicking to one security camera and then another.
Jackpot.
